Costa v. Lair

On September 24, 1975, the appellee filed an action in trespass against the appellant for personal injuries arising from an automobile accident which occurred on August 1, 1975. Although the appellee’s cause of action arose prior to the effective date of the recent act of the Pennsylvania General Assembly which adopted the doctrine of comparative negligence, 1 the lower court ordered that the legislative act “. . .is hereby to be applied retroactively in this action; and alternatively . . . if the [act] ... is declared to apply only prospectively, the judge-made common law doctrine of…